Fishing Cold Water in the Great Smoky Mountains -Hatch Summary- Part 16

Fly fishing Great Smoky Mountains National Park during the winter months in cold water before the late winter-early spring hatches begin, requires fishing methods that are quite different from the normal. First of all, it requires knowing exactly what the water temperature is at the particular place you are fishing. That means a thermometer is absolutely necessary. Of course this doesn't do you any good if you do not know where the trout position themselves in the streams at various ranges of water temperatures; where, when and how they feed; what they feed on; and how you should imitate and present your fly for the various sceneries.

You will hear bits of advice such as "weight a nymph down and fish it right on the bottom". It is also good to use a leader and oh, yea, don't forget the tippet. I'll add that good advise but I doubt any of the advise so far is worth very much. Depending on what is happening in the cold water, the first part of the advice given could be exactly opposite of what you may need to be doing. You may need to be fishing just under the surface of the water. Fish on the bottom of what - shallow pockets, riffles, deep runs, pools, etc? What kind of nymph - mayfly, stonefly and what size? The people giving this type of advise, first of all, probably rarely if ever fish cold water and secondly, for sure don't catch much of anything when they do. They probably think because it is cold that the trout get down to the bottom to keep warm. They probably think the trout will look for the warmest places in the stream to get trying to stay warm. I'm sure they thing the trout go to shivering from the cold. Maybe they think they can't swim in cold water and have to lie on the bottom.

Of course you will also hear them say to "fish the sunny water" and not in the shade, even though the water is flowing downstream a five miles an hour and mixing like it would in the dishwasher. I guess they also think the trout will go in the sunny areas so they can get warm. I guess that means you should find the deepest water in the stream, in the sunny areas. The only good that will do you is that it will help you, a warm blooded creature, keep warmer than you would if you fished in the shade.

I'll just about promise you that if you fish on any cold winter day and begin to fish any type of nymph of any size, anywhere in the stream, weighted down and on the bottom, that your odds of catching one fish for the day is about one in ten, probably worse. Most likely you will not catch anything. Not that fishing on the bottom or that fishing a nymph is bad advise, it is that catching fish without relying on pure luck involves a lot more than that.

You will also hear that you may catch a fish or two but you want catch many. That advice is not only worthless, it is misleading. If you do things the right way, using the right methods, fishing the right type of water with the right flies you may catch fifty. I have done that several times and half that many, many times in cold water less than fifty degrees. At times, when you find them concentrated, you can catch a lot more than you can under other presumably, good conditions. If the water is almost frozen, say between thirty-two and thirty nine degrees, you probably won't catch many but if it is between forty-five and fifty, it is very possible to catch just as many as you could catch at any water temperature. I notice that a lot of anglers go home without a fish brought to the net or hand when the water temperature is between fifty-five and sixty-five degrees. Catching trout is not a mathematical derivative of water temperature. By the way, if the water is below freezing very much, you can catch a lot by just chopping up the ice and carrying it home and thawing it out.

I can promise you one thing for sure. If you sit on your behind and listen to others that don't fish when the water is cold (and little, if any, when it is perfect) tell you how to fish, when and when not to go, and give poor, even misleading advice as old fogey, almost as fossil as the mountains, you will not catch a single trout. You will have to put a fly in the water to get a strike from a fish in cold or hot water. Don't let anyone tell you what you can and can't do. Get out on the streams, wherever it is legal, and fish. Fishing for trout is wonderful in the cold winter. The trout love it and so will you. That is why they love the northern country and the high country of the West. That is why the have to be stocked almost everywhere in the South but the Great Smoky Mountains.